receive
much credit.

On the night of October 16, 1854, a miner named Scobie was murdered, or
at least killed, at the Eureka Hotel, near Ballarat. The Eureka Hotel
was a place of no good repute, kept by a man named Bentley, who, as well
as his wife, was (it is said) an ex-convict from Tasmania. Suspicion
fell upon the couple, and they, with a second man (named Farrell), were
arrested by the magistrates, but almost immediately released for alleged
default of evidence. The dismissal of the charge excited a storm of
indignation in the camp, and a body of diggers at once proceeded to
wreck the hotel and lynch the accused. In the latter object they,
fortunately, did not succeed, and so rendered themselves liable only to
charges of riot and arson, instead of the more serious charge of murder.
Four of the ringleaders were, through the prompt measures of Sir Charles
Hotham, shortly afterward arrested, and committed for trial. But the
accusations of partiality against the officials were too strong to be
resisted, and a board of inquiry hastily instituted by the Governor
disclosed the ugly facts that Dewes, the magistrate who presided at the
hearing of the charge against the Bentleys, had been in the habit of
borrowing money from residents, and that Sergeant-Major Milne, of the
police force, had been guilty of receiving bribes. The officials
implicated were at once dismissed, and the Bentleys and Farrell
rearrested and convicted. But the Governor very properly declined to
release the arrested rioters, who, shortly before Christmas, 1854, were
convicted and sentenced to short terms of imprisonment.

Meanwhile, more disturbances had occurred. Though a commission upon the
general condition of the gold-fields was holding its inquiries, in
November many diggers again refused to pay the reduced license fees,
and, on the 30th of the month, a serious riot took place. The military
were called out, the Riot Act was read, and there was some shooting.
Eight captures were made, but the lesson had not been severe enough, and
a state of open war ensued. The diggers intrenched themselves in a
fortified camp known as the "Eureka Stockade," openly drilled their
forces in the presence of the authorities, and levied horses and rations
from unwilling miners in the name of a "commander-in-chief." At the same
time they issued a long political manifesto, which, while it did not
avowedly disclaim allegiance to the Crown, contained proposals to which
n